Compounding and Non-Rigid Image Registration for Ultrasound Speckle Reduction

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting a subset of images of the frequency compounded ultrasound image data for the non-rigidly registering, wherein the subset of images comprises the ultrasound images from the frequency compounded ultrasound image data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein a second image of the subset of images is selected based on an angular displacement relative to a first image of the subset of images satisfying the threshold angular displacement.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the selecting and the non-rigidly registering are performed in an amount of time that is no greater than a frame rate of the ultrasound probe.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the selecting and the non-rigidly registering are performed as post processing operations.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the selecting comprises performing a cross-correlation between of images of the frequency compounded ultrasound image data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-rigidly registering comprises applying an iterative gradient-based algorithm of determining a displacement vector to transform a second image of the frequency compounded images to align with a first image of the frequency compounded images.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing fast Fourier decomposition of echo data from the ultrasound probe to generate the ultrasound image data for the frequency compounding.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising tracking a region of interest of an object being imaged by the ultrasound probe.

14. The ultrasound imaging system of claim 13, wherein the one or more computing devices are configured to select a subset of images of the frequency compounded ultrasound image data based on an angular displacement satisfying the threshold angular displacement, wherein the subset of images comprises the ultrasound images from the frequency compounded ultrasound image data.

15. The ultrasound imaging system of claim 13, wherein the one or more computing devices are configured to non-rigidly register by at least applying an iterative gradient-based algorithm of determining a displacement vector to transform a second image of the frequency compounded images to align with a first image of the frequency compounded images.

16. The ultrasound imaging system of claim 13, wherein the ultrasound imaging system is configured to transmit an ultrasound pulse from the ultrasound probe with pulse shaping to compensate for a frequency response of one or more ultrasound transducers of the ultrasound probe.

17. The ultrasound imaging system of claim 13, wherein the one or more computing devices are configured to perform Fourier decomposition of the ultrasound image data prior to frequency compounding the ultrasound image data.

18. The ultrasound imaging system of claim 13, wherein the ultrasound probe comprises a phased array of transducers, and wherein the one or more computing devices are configured to track a region of interest of an object being imaged by the ultrasound probe, determine a displacement of the ultrasound probe based on tracking the region of interest, and control beam steering of an ultrasound array based on the determined displacement.

19. The ultrasound imaging system of claim 13, further comprising a display in communication with the one or more computing devices, wherein the display is configured to visually present the compounded ultrasound image.